75 Honest Out Of Context WikiHow Captions You’ll Feel Guilty For Laughing At
If the internet’s something like the collective unconscious of humankind, then it says a lot about us if we’re both incredibly brilliant and WTF-level weird all at once.
A great example of this is one of the best-known online resources—WikiHow, a quality database of useful tips and tricks to help people do whatever they need to get done, step by simple step. Easy, right? What could go wrong? Well, some WikiHow illustrations look a tiny bit bizarre when taken out of context and it’s the source of a lot of laughter on the net.
There’s such a large fan-base for these drawings that they joined the ‘Disney Vacation’ subreddit that’s dedicated to sharing the “weirdest, terrible, terrifying illustrations from WikiHow.” All with hilarious captions, of course!
More: Reddit h/t: boredpanda
Xalaxis, the main moderator of the ‘Disney Vacation’ subreddit, told Bored Panda that the community isn’t really worried about running out of content. Not as long as Wikihow exists, anyway.
“Ultimately, the content in our subreddit is made by the users, so as long as there’s redditors around and content to post, I don’t think we’ll run dry. We are, of course, immensely grateful for their contributions and I always strive to remind people that without them there would be no subreddit. Thanks everyone!” Xalaxis said.
“We decided to disallow ‘political posts’ recently after noticing that content related to the (then upcoming) US 2020 election was causing division amongst our members. After taking a poll which showed generally spread views, we decided to introduce the political posts rule on the basis that disneyvacation should primarily be a place you come to get away from current affairs—If we avoid divisive political jokes, then hopefully the net number of people enjoying our subreddit can increase,” the main mod explained that the decision was made with the goal of unity in mind.
“That being said, it’s worth noting that the political posts rule actually doesn’t disallow all political posts, just those that reference a candidate, their party, or a news organization at the moment (see current rule). That’s deliberately so posts like this are allowed, where the caption is more likely to appeal to those across the political spectrum. Really, it should probably be several different rules, but for now we’re keeping it in one and judging everything as it goes. So far, I think we’ve seen a lot less arguing about politics since the rule was introduced in September. I imagine the workload related to this rule should calm down a bit now the election is nearing it’s end.”
Xalaxis also revealed that they’ve been in contact with a WikiHow staff member in the past when passing on some concerns about content that was a tad too peculiar, even for WikiHow.
“They were very prompt in replying and dealing with the issue, and here’s a quote from the email: ‘Yep, familiar with the subreddit and get a giggle out of the occasional out-of-context image myself :)’ (smiley from original email),” Xalaxis shared. “I felt quite proud that we’d been acknowledged by our ‘parent’ if you like.”
In all fairness, WikiHow is a bastion of quality content (with a few hilarious exceptions) and boasts over 227k+ articles. The average WikiHow article gets edited by 23 people and reviewed by 16 individuals.
Experts also frequently review these articles and give the thumbs-up when everything matches their standards (that’s what the green checkmark means). The WikiHow team also looks at reader feedback which means that each article gets changed 9 times each year, on average.
Meanwhile, the ‘Disney Vacation’ subreddit has a whopping 584k members which just goes to show that there are quite a few people out there making up the WikiHow illustration cult following.
